


Rooftop

by thesmallestmouse



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M, Painting, background daveymush, background newsbians, im so sorry I really like color theory, literally pure fluff, painter!Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 01:11:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12377826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesmallestmouse/pseuds/thesmallestmouse
Summary: Jack remembered the day like it was yesterday. Crutchie and him on the rooftop, warm and light. He tries to capture it as best he can in the only way he knows how.





	Rooftop

Taking a break from his commissions, Jack turned towards a canvas he had kept hidden behind some paint-splattered sheets and other canvases. He gingerly moved the landscape he had been working on to the side and propped up the new canvas in its place. With that, he began to work.  
The soft noises of the brush on canvas are all Jack could hear. The long sweeping motions of his arm and the brush in his hand were calming, repetitive but not boring. Slowly, under his careful movements, the scene began to develop before him. Warm peaches and pale tones and golden honeys began to blend across the canvas, freckles and pinks merging into a familiar form. 

Jack painted Crutchie. Sitting on the rooftop of a hot New York day in the summer two years ago, before Jack had gotten a job with the paper, the two boys had taken off their shirts to try to let the day’s sweat dry before the sun went down. The sun was setting, and in the slight haze it seemed to Jack like a watercolor painting, soft and fuzzy around the edges. The two had laid there for what seemed like ages, staring up into the periwinkle sky, before Jack turned to say something to Crutchie.  


When Jack looked over at Crutchie, whatever he was going to say was lost on his tongue. Crutchie was beautiful. His blonde hair was a mess (who’s wasn’t) and he had the smudge of a bruise on his cheekbone from a brawl with some boys who had tried to take his corner. His ribs were a little too prominent, Jack noted, as his chest rose and fell in an even pattern (twelve pairs, and Crutchie had broken one when he was a kid so there was a scar over the seventh).  


Jack had never wanted to kiss someone so badly. Crutchie cracked an eye open as if he knew Jack was staring and asked him ‘what?’ in a nasally voice just slightly hoarse from a day of hollering in the streets. 

Jack didn’t kiss him.

 

Now, it was all he could think about. So instead, he painted. Parted lips, pink and chapped, eyelashes, thin and wispy. Jack let himself paint loose and the portrait was fuzzy around the edges, like the sunset behind him. He heard the apartment door open behind him, Davey enter and call out a hello, but it seemed far away, distant. The door to his room opened, and the voice seemed less distant now.

“Still working on that one, huh?” He heard Davey ask. Jack sighed, wiping the paint off of his hands before turning to look at the boy. 

“Aw buzz off Davey, is just a side project of mine, so I’m taking my time.” Jack stood, shuffling from foot to foot as Davie cocked his head to the time, looking at the big canvas across from him. Jack looked over his shoulder and taunted, “still pining after Mush, huh?” with a grin. Davey ignored Jack’s lighthearted jab as he responded.

“Kinda looks like Crutchie. It’s pretty.” Jack’s breath caught for a second and his smile dropped, but Davie missed the sudden panicked look on Jack’s face, and so Jack laughed, forced.

“Oh yeah, that’s Crutchie all right. A real pretty boy,” he drawled. Davey looked over to Jack with one brow raised, so Jack shoved his hands into his pocket and looked down. Davey just repeated ‘a real pretty boy.’ before he turned and exited the room, shaking his head. Jack stood in place, unsure what to do, his meditative state broken.

“Sarah’s dragging me out so she has an excuse to see Katherine cause Katherine is going out with the boys, so I’ll be back late tonight,” Davey called, as he grabbed his keys and jacket. 

“Go get him, Dav,” Jack called behind him, before turning and getting lost in his work once again.

He dipped his brush back into the paint, mixing colors with a loose hand on the palette and letting them run into each other. Some got onto his hands, but he didn’t notice in his concentration. Before long, it was dark out. The sunset changed his colors, so he painted the sunset as he saw it, waiting until the sun gave up for the night before going back to work on the portrait itself in the dim light of the lone bulb in the room.

The dip of his arm where it turned to shadow was an interesting collection of purples and oranges, especially next to the greens and yellows in the bruise. Jack may have exaggerated how prominent the bruise was, but he loved all of Crutchie’s colors. (White was his only exception, because that meant sickness, more of which Crutchie couldn’t afford). A little angry red added to his knuckles and joints, a little blue (the bruise wasn’t the only mark from the scuffle). 

Golden locks wispy and scattered. Jack couldn’t paint how the wind brushed through his hair, so he settled instead for adding in the ashy tones washed away in the shadows. He didn’t let himself think about running his hands through that hair either.

 

He didn’t notice the apartment door opening and closing, nor a voice calling out his name. He didn’t notice the tap on the doorframe, a voice calling his name, softer this time. He only heard the soft voice behind him, closer now, whispering a breathy oh. 

Jack whipped around the see Crutchie in the doorway. He had his white hospital scrubs still in his hands, just in a pair of loose-fitting pants, meaning he must have just gotten home from work. Jack cursed himself inwardly for not having anything prepared for Crutchie to eat, ‘cause he was always hungry after his hospital shift, and then he cursed the hospital for having him work so late.  


Crutchie took a step forward towards him, and Jack was quick to step in front of the canvas so he couldn’t see it.

 

“Jack, I…” Crutchie dropped his scrubs to the floor, forgotten. Jack stiffened. Crutchie pushed Jack to the side, never taking his eyes off the piece. “It’s beautiful.” Jack just stared at Crutchie, his mouth slightly agape. Crutchie’s hand was still on his arm.

“It’s you.” Jack managed to say, when he finally found his voice. Crutchie laughed, almost bitter.

“Sure it is. Picture me looking this beautiful.” Crutchie’s other hand gripped tighter on his crutch unconsciously, and Jack found the strength to move his body. (Crutchie’s smile was more bitter than happy. It wasn’t a good smile.) Jack forced himself to laugh too, slinging an arm over Crutchie’s shoulder, bring him in towards him.

Crutchie saw through Jack’s efforts a lot easier than Davey, but didn’t stop him as Jack shook him and chided “hey now, you’re a pretty boy.” Jack immediately stiffened when he realized what he said and he pulled away from Crutchie, ducking his head. When he finally got the courage to look up again, Crutchie was looking at him with a shit-eating grin, one eyebrow raised.

“I’m a pretty boy?” Jack ignored the implications of how he said that, and instead focused on the hand that grabbed the end of his ascot and drew him close.

“Damn right you are,” Jack said, as he cupped his chin with a paint-splattered hand for a kiss. When Crutchie pulled away, he had that same smile on his face but he was covered in strokes of purple and blue paint. His lips were flush (rose pink and red) and his pupils were blown.

 

(Davie came home and immediately pointed out the paint still smeared across his jaw, and the little spots of red and orange on his lower back from where Jack had pulled him even closer, a hand on his spine.)

 

(Crutchie, from where he laid watching Jack paint, was quick to point out that Davey’s shirt was inside out.)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first posted fic (not my first by far but...) so tell me how it is?


End file.
